Last-Minute Contributions to Washington State Political Campaigns

Since the 2013 general election, this dataset tracks cash and in-kind contributions reported within 7 days of a primary or 21 days of a general election in Washington State. It includes contributions made to candidates and political committees. Columns suggest detailed tracking of contributors, recipients, amounts, and election context.

Use Cases

• Analyzing donor concentration by aggregating `amount` and grouping by `contributor_name`.
• Mapping contribution flows by linking `contributor_zip` and `recipient_zip` to geographic regions.
• Tracking election-cycle activity by filtering `election_year` and `primary_general`.
• Investigating committee funding sources by joining `committee_id` with `filer_name` and `amount`.
• Assessing party-level fundraising by summarizing `amount` grouped by `party`.

Strengths

• Contains data from at least 2013 to the present, providing a multi-year time series.
• Includes granular details such as contributor and recipient addresses, contribution dates, and election context.
• Available on multiple government data platforms, indicating official provenance and public importance.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and license are consistently missing across all sources.
• The exact temporal endpoint is unclear as the 'last updated' field refers to metadata, not data coverage.
• Column list is only available from one platform, limiting certainty about data completeness elsewhere.

Provenance

Source

State of Washington

Collection Method

Reported by candidates and political committees to state authorities.

Time Range

2013 general election onward

Freshness

Metadata was last updated on 2026-03-22 according to two sources.

Geography

Washington State, United States